T RACEABILITY N EED

Traceability is a very critical issue in a process chain for instance in automotive, con-struction and mining industry it makes recalls possible. In food industry it contributes to food safety. In Software Engineering field traceability gives support for requirements validation and improves the quality of the software development process. Traceability can be assigned to different aspects for instance traceability of a result, method, proce-dure, laboratory, product, material, equipment and so on. As such traceability has no

single definition and that is why it would be better to understand the more general meaning of traceability before exploring it in different aspects.

Table 10. Definition of Traceability by various sources.

Definition Source

Traceability requires the establishment of an un-broken chain of comparison to stated references.

National Institute of Standards and Tech-nology (NIST) USA The ability to trace the history, application or location of

that which is under construction...when considering a product, traceability can relate to the origin of materials and parts, and the processing history.

ISO 9000 (ISO 2000) Food Sector

The ability to trace and follow a food, feed, food producing animal or substance indented to be, or expected to be

Internal traceability is related to the product and the information relating to it internally in a company and even inside a conglomerate of companies. While external traceability relates to the product information that a company either receives or provides to the next links in the chain from primary producer to the end-user.

In logistics, courier companies (DHL, FedEx etc.), freight forwarding companies and also in SCM (Supply Chain Management) traceability plays a vital role that helps to maintain the customer satisfaction. There are several ways in logistics that enables to apply traceability for instance online tracing of goods supported by a batch number or id code, radio frequency identification (RFIDs), telecom services, bar-coding, GPS naviga-tion etc. Traceability in logistics provides several advantages, for instance:

 Asset tracking and management

 Increased security of assets

 Improved stock management and availability

 Reduced errors in product data handling

 Shipping consolidation

 Verification

 Item tracking within a manufacturing plant

In after-sales business development traceability is a vital factor, as discussed above re-gardless of the importance of the sales business it is regretting to note that after-sales business processes are performed very badly in most organizations. Typically or-ganizations treat after-sales business in minimally coordinated fashion. No single man-ager has assigned the responsibility for their end-to-end performance, most people in-volved in performing them can see no further than their individual tasks, and there are no effective systems to quantify overall performance.

Traceability is the most important factor in after-sales business. For instance imagine a machine stops while working on a very important project due to a failure of a very small but essential part. In this situation machine needs to be working again as soon as possi-ble and this could only be possipossi-ble by replacing that part as soon as possipossi-ble. Therefore in B2B world service, delivery and availability are extremely important.

The matter of fact is that the after-sales business processes involve multiple tions for instance a manufacturer, suppliers, distributors, dealers etc. These organiza-tions which together can call as a business chain are collectively even less coordinated than the various functions within one company. After-sales business processes are in-formation-intensive that need to be performed effectively and quickly. They usually require information about customers, products, parts, personnel, and much more.

Repair and maintenance personnel are often unable to determine current levels of spare parts inventory because multiple independent organizations may be holding such inven-tory and in the end companies have to face the service level penalties in the form of customer down-time. Many companies therefore opt to stuff the channel with spare-parts, which merely creates other problems. For efficient traceability to work flawlessly two things are of high importance:

 Identification

 Product Data Management

Identification plays a vital role for traceability networks to work more efficiently. It means that either it will be a product, part or equipment it must have clear markings on it. Below table shows the advantages and disadvantages of some common identification ways.

Table 11. Ways of Identification.

Different ways of identification in order to make the product or part more traceable, it also shows the relationship between the cost and advantages or dis-advantages involved in choice of traceability used in order to make the process more and more traceable. The product or part identification and location technologies can be grouped as follows.

 Data carrier technologies (Bar-Codes) - includes linear bar-codes, two di-mensional (multi row bar code and matrix codes) and composite codes, con-tact and non-concon-tact magnetic data carriers, concon-tact memory and RFID data carriers.

 MES-Integrated or Location and locating technologies- exploiting GLN (Global Logistic Networks) by carries including RFID and EANCOM, and active RFID real time locating systems (RTLS) and Global positioning sys-tems (GPS) locating technologies.

Product data Management is also very important for a traceability network through-out the whole business chain i.e. OEM, suppliers, distributors or dealers. With a precise data-base it will be really helpful to trace the required product or part in quick time.

Data management or Product data-management (PDM) is the use of software or other tools to track and control data related to a particular product. The data tracked usually involves the technical specifications of the product, specifications for manufacture and development, and the types of materials that will be required to produce goods. Typical information managed in the PDM module includes:

MES-INTEGRATED

BAR-CODE

PAPER

 Part number

 Part description

 Supplier/vendor

 Vendor part number and description

 Unit of measure

 Cost/price

The use of product data management allows a company to track the various costs asso-ciated with the creation and launch of a product. Product data management is part of product life cycle management, and is primarily used by engineers. With-in PDM the focus is on managing and tracking the creation, change and archive of all information related to a product.

Without the spare part on hand, a company's customer satisfaction levels could drop if a customer has to wait too long for their item to be fixed. Therefore companies need to plan and align their service parts inventory and workforce resources to achieve optimal customer satisfaction levels with minimal costs and an efficient traceability network.

But before an efficient and traceable network will actually start to work, customer needs a proper "ID CODE", that must be marked on the part that needs to be replaced, only then the customer will be encouraged enough to buy the spare part from the OEM. A properly marked ID-Code works as an initiator for a traceable network.

In order to enable the customer to order a replacement part from the OEM’s after sales organization the part needs to have a clearly marked ID code. While selecting the best way to put ID-Code on parts cost factor plays a vital role because when talking about the bulk productions even a single penny has got its worth. Therefore cost can be critical to increase the capital investment or ultimately increasing the price of the product or spare part. There are different ways to mark the parts or products:

 Tape on the spare part or product

 Multiple rounds of tape on the spare part or product

 Multiple rounds of plastic tape on the spare part or product

 Print on the spare part or product

 Print on the spare part or product with adhesive making the print more resistant

 Print on a plastic band attached to a spare part or product

 Carving on a plastic band attached on the spare part or product

Markings in a more permanent manner for after sales purposes are challenging when machines are used in rough conditions – stickers and labels are likely to drop off and ink-based markings simply will wear off. Thus, the ID code needs to be carved in plas-tic or metal and attached in a way that they will not drop off with some physical stress.